Inventory control is a fundamental activity in closed loop supply chains, particularly for remanufacturing processes. Several models have been developed in the literature where the aim is mostly to optimize cost or profit and to find the optimal order quantity for an integrated production and remanufacturing system. In this study, we explore a System Dynamics approach in order to model an inven...

We consider a manufacturer who sells both the new and remanufactured versions of a product over its life cycle. The manufacturer’s profit depends crucially on her ability to synchronize product returns with the sales of the remanufactured product. This gives rise to a challenging dynamic optimization problem where the size of both the market and the user pool are dynamic and their current value...

This paper is on production planning and inventory control in systems where manufacturing and remanufacturing operations occur simultaneously. Typical for these hybrid systems is, that both the output of the manufacturing process and the output of the remanufacturing process can be used to fulfil customer demands. Here, we consider a relatively simple hybrid system, related to a single componen...

Remanufacturing is a product recovery option that upgrades the quality of returns to “as-good-as-new” conditions. Remanufactured products cost less, and are sold with the same or better warranty as for new products. In this paper, we consider a duopoly environment with two manufacturers in direct competition selling their respective new products on the primary market. Specifically, we address t...

Under growing consumer awareness and increasing legislation, firms are realizing the importance of including sustainability within their strategic objectives to promote their green image, enhance their corporate citizenship status, and also improve profit margins. Towards this end, sustainability through product remanufacturing is gaining momentum. However, a key complication for maintaining op...

An effective planning of lot sizes is a key strategy to efficiently manage a combined manufacturing/ remanufacturing system in the presence of substantial setup costs. Due to its complex interdependencies, optimal policies and solutions have not been identified so far, but several heuristic approaches have been analyzed in recent contributions. The main heuristic shortcuts are forcing equally s...

Abstract: A simple dynamic model of a hybrid manufacturing / remanufacturing system is investigated. In particular we study an infinite horizon, continuous time, APIOBPCS (Automatic Pipeline Inventory and Order Based Production Control System) model. We specifically highlight the effect of remanufacturing lead-time and the return rate on the inventory variance and bullwhip produced by the order...

We study a firm that makes new products in the first period and uses returned cores to make remanufactured products (along with new products) in future periods. The remanufactured product is differentiated from the new product, so the firm needs to choose differentiated prices. We analyze the monopoly environment in two-period, multi-period (three, four and five) and infinite planning horizons,...

As recognized by several authors, the design of a reverse logistics network is a complex problem and still relatively unexplored and underdeveloped. We propose a binary particle swarm optimization (BPSO)-based scheme for solving a NP-hard remanufacturing network design problem. The algorithm combines a traditional stochastic search with an optimal solution method for solving to optimality a rel...

A considerable amount of work has recently been applied to the development of processes to reduce negative environmental impacts of disposal products. Different waste reduction options such as direct reuse, repair, refurbishing, cannibalization, and remanufacturing were introduced to overcome these shortages. This paper studies an integrated system of manufacturing and remanufacturing using a c...